All praise honor glory and power be unto you Oh Sovereign Most High God. You are the one who tears down nations, plants nations and builds them up. You have not come to destroy us but to give us life and that more abundantly.
We honor you for creating and sustaining our nation the United States of America. We celebrate the work of your hand as you have called this Nation to be a light of the Gospel to our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, as we put ourselves in remembrance of our forefathers and mothers, we first honor those who have loved you and served you in this nation and around the world. We also put ourselves and remembrance and honor all of those who have served in the armed forces those who have risked their lives or have lost their lives to protect this nation and the rights for which it stands. In remembrance of all those who have served as overseers and the government workings of this nation we also honor and remember their sacrifice and service. Father we come before your presence asking that we, as your people, will be strengthened by you and given grace by you to do our part to fulfill our destiny purpose and call for this nation. May your fame go out from us to our communities states and nation to bring glory and honor to you.
We ask you Father that you continue to give us righteous nation who serves and honors you and its in all its ways that you will continue to overshadow and protect us and keep us.
Truly Father we are blessed by you in this nation. As we celebrate the independence of our nation this Fourth of July May the colorful display of fireworks put us in remembrance of the colorful rainbow of promises that you have given unto us as your children!
In the precious Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the Anointed One. Amen
Thesis #15: “The New Apostolic Epoch” By: P. Douglas Small
Prayer begins with God. It is grace empowered. God wakes up our cold dead heart to the reality of His Presence and calls prayer out of us. Prayer is always our response to the often-imperceptible Presence and working of the Holy Spirit (John 4:23). The absence of regular prayer indicates spiritual deafness, or worse, a hard heart no longer obedient when God calls.
Prayer:
“Like your disciples, we ask you to “teach us how to pray!” But, not just the words. Teach us the “value” of prayer to our lives in this world!” May we grasp the connection between prayer and your power at work in and through our lives personally. Help us to know how to use prayer daily, to pray past our own person and being, our own need, and pray for wisdom, strength, and courage to extend the grace you have placed inside us, to others we meet during the course of the day. Reveal to us how much “prayer” is like an “umbilical cord”, always connecting us to you and keeping Your life flowing into our life! Teach us how to stay “tethered” to You through a consistent, vibrant, prayer life.
We surrender our will to you now as we pray. Your will, not our will be done, here on earth, just like it is in heaven! Use us this day to distribute the “glory” of Christ’s transforming love by the transformation His love has brought to us personally through faith in You. May we be blessed to know Your Presence is with us through out the course of this day! It is in the name of Your Son, who is our Savior, Jesus Christ of Nazareth that we humble ask these things. Amen!
Thesis #14: “The New Apostolic Epoch” By: P. Douglas Small
07/21/19
Jesus said in the New Testament, “My house shall be called a house of prayer!” Doug Small is the international director of prayer ministries for the Church of God and the founding president of Alive Ministries: PROJECT PRAY. In a recent book, “The New Apostolic Epoch, Brother Small gives us The New 95 Theses – Proposals For Reformation. I am using these to teach us more about Prayer.
A theses is a statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved. I believe the following theses that I am about to read to you concerning prayer. In the church, we do many things such as maintaining the buildings and grounds, keeping them clean, visiting the sick and needy, caring for those in need of care, disciplining, training, preaching the Gospel and a whole lot more. The theses I am presenting today – theses # 14 – about prayer says this:
“God delights to meet our needs – nothing is to small to pray about, but, noble prayer delights to meet God’s need to do His will, to serve His kingdom purposes, to glorify His name.
Psalm 40:8 – “I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
Matthew 6:9,10 – “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.”
Hebrews 10:7 – “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come— In the volume of the book it is written of Me— To do Your will, O God.’ ”
Prayer: O Lord, Creator of all life, I come to give You thanks for my life, for hope and for the evidence of Your plan for my life. The vastness and beauty of the earth all remind me of Your attention to intricate detail. Thank you for creating such a place for me to live, find love, and to serve the interests of Your Kingdom in the splendor of Your creation.
Your capacity to care for each individual here upon the earth is exceeded only by Your love for each and every one of us who live here. I reach back to You today, to humbly say, “I love You, I need You and thank You for the watch-care over the whole world and all the people in it. Help me to be faithful in all the assignments I am privileged to be given by Your commission. I ask all these things in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, Amen!
Prayer Teaching: we often say “God is good!” And our response to that is, …“all the time!”
Question: But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and far better than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask for anything?
Answer: What if He knows Prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great need, our endless need – the need of Himself? Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner. Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need: prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of prayer. So begins a communion, a talking with God, a coming-to-one with Him, which is the sole end of prayer.
George MacDonald
Mr. MacDonald says: “What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great need, our endless need – the need of Himself?”
The illustration: Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner.
Conclusion: Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need: prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of prayer. So begins a communion, a talking with God, a coming-to-one with Him, which is the sole end of prayer.
Have you had an experience recently, or in your past that caused you to “run” to God in prayer?
What was motivating you? Was it a financial need? A need for “favor”? Or was it just a need for reassurance?
When you got on the other side of the experience, what did you glean from it?
Is there anyone here today that understands or relates to the concept of “communion with God through prayer is our greatest need”?
13 Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
Their tongues are filled with lies. Snake venom drips from their lips.
14 Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.
15 They rush to commit murder.
16 Destruction and misery always follow them.
17 They don’t know where to find peace.
18 They have no fear of God at all.
21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.
22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.
25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past,
26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith.
28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
